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BANNACKS BANNOCKBURN 287 banksias have been much cultivated, and they will bear the climate of the southern states or of England with slight protection. All are easily propagated from seeds. The banksia of Banksia apeclosa. Forster is to be referred to the genus pimelea; that of Konig to catus, a genus of the ginger family ; and that of Bruce to lirayera, a genus of rosacea. The last, under the name of cusso, was found by the distinguished African trav- eller in the high country of Abyssinia, where a decoction of its leaves was used commonly as an anthelmintic. HAYYN KS. lionnarks, or Pannaqnes, a tribe of Indians of the Shoshonee family scattered over several of the territories and states of the Union. They were first found in the almost desert lands between the Saptin river and Salt lake, and be- tween the Blue and Rocky mountains. At an early period they obtained horses and resorted to the bison plains and more fertile spots, and thus became a more closely connected tribe than Indians on foot. They are proud, brave, fine- looking men, though their women are repre- sented as ugly. Those with the eastern Sho- shonees, long under a friendly chief, Tahjee, have always been friendly to the whites. With the others there were for a time hostilities in 1866. They frequent the Yellowstone country to hunt, and range through northern Utah, Wy- oming, southern Montana, Nevada, and Idaho. The two chief bands number apparently about 600 each, though in the ordinary returns some appear to be enumerated over again in different agencies. Their language is a dialect of the Shoshonee, but differs considerably from that of the Shoshonees proper. They have recently been placed on reservations where there is but little fish or game, and where they have been exposed to attacks from the Dakotas. BANKEKER, Benjamin, a negro mathematician and astronomer, born at Ellicott's Mills, Md., Nov. 9, 1731, died in October, 1806. His ma- ternal grandmother was a white woman, who 71 VOL. H. 19 liberated and married one of her slaves, and from her he learned to read and write. After his 50th year he commenced the study of mathematics and astronomy, and from 1792 till his death published almanacs prepared from his own calculations. Thomas Jefferson trans- mitted the first one in manuscript to the secre- tary of the Paris academy of sciences, and sent a complimentary letter to the author. Ban- neker assisted in running the boundary lines of the District of Columbia and in laying out the city of Washington. A book of his city calculations is preserved in the Maryland his- torical society at Baltimore, which association has published two sketches of his life. BAMERET, a feudal title of military dignity, now extinct, ranking between the baron and the knight. The banneret was the lowest of the feudal dignitaries. He displayed a square banner on his lance, instead of the swallow- tailed pennon of the simple knight, and com- manded a body of his own vassals, who should number at least 50. The title was usually con- ferred on the field by the king in person, as a reward for gallantry, and the ceremony con- sisted in cutting off the tails of the candidate's pennon. The title of knight banneret, a degree higher than the bachelor, appears in the time of Philip Augustus, and lasted until the crea- tion of companies of ordnance by Charles VII. The first banneret in England, according to Froissart, was created by Edward I. After the institution of baronets by James I. the or- der dwindled away, and the last creation in England is generally accounted to have been by Charles I., who made Capt. John Smith a banneret for rescuing the royal banner at Edgehill ; though George III. attempted to re- vive the dignity in 1797, when he conferred it upon Capt. Sir Henry Trollope, in whose ship he reviewed the fleet at the Nore. I'.mocklilKV a village of Stirlingshire, Scotland, about 3 m. S. E. of Stirling castle ; pop. about 2,700. The large brook (burn) which flows through the town and gives it its name falls into the frith of Forth, and is said to have been named from the oaten cakes (bannocks) so common in that region. The town is the seat of woollen manufactures, and has long supplied the tartans worn by the Highland re- giments of the British army. A battle was fought here, June 24, 1314, between the Scots under Robert Bruce and the English under Ed- ward II. Edward, with nearly 100,000 men, including the flower of the English nobility, was met at Bannockburn by Bruce with about 30,000 men, and after a fierce contest was routed with a loss of 30,000. By this battle the independence of Scotland was secured, and Bruce was firmly seated upon the throne. Near the same place, at Sauchieburn, James III. was defeated by his rebellious subjects in 1488, and was assassinated in a mill near by, where he had taken refuge. The "bore stone" is still pointed out as the spot on which Bruce fixed his standard on the day of the battle.